Virtue Ethics and Literary Imagination

Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, 2012

Possible Worlds of Contemporary Aesthetics: Aesthetics Between History, Geography and Media, 2019

I analize the relationship between Philosophy and Literature. First, there is an essencial historical summary, then, I analize the contrasting positions of Derrida and Habermas about this topic. Finally, I use their considerations to give an answer to three fundamental questions regarding the relation between Philosophy and Literature: 1) Is philosophy still able to be a useful tool for describing the truth? 2) Is literature capable to describe contingent realities and not just universal ones? 3) Is it possible to conceive a relationship between Philosophy and Literature without subordinating one to another?

Croatian Journal of Philosophy, 2019

Many philosophers have claimed that reading literary fiction makes people more virtuous. This essay begins by defending the view that this claim is empirical. It goes on to review the empirical literature and finds that this literature supports the claim philosophers have made. Three mechanisms are identified whereby reading literary fiction makes people more virtuous: empathy is increased when readers enter imaginatively into the lives of fictional characters; reading literary fiction promotes self-reflection; and readers mimic the prosocial behaviour of fictional characters. The paper concludes with a caution: there is a danger that readers could mimic antisocial behaviour displayed in literary fiction. If they do, reading some literary fiction could make readers less virtuous.

In the literary tradition covering more than two and a half thousand years, philosophy has been frequently mentioned in close proximity to literature, often as different ways of engaging more or less the same activity. We shall look at this matter briefly in the paper. What is not often said, even though many would probably not object to the idea is that literary criticism is a philosophical, rather than a scientific discipline, insofar as it is exercised by the need to understand, lacking the means to explain the phenomenon it is faced with. Three things really are at issue here: literature, literary studies/criticism, and philosophy. There are interrelationships among them, which is why some of the most important works relevant to the study of literary phenomena are by philosophers, normally the very greatest ones among them. We will not be exploring this history in detail, but only the engendering of literary criticism as a result of the philosophical interest in the literary, of which Plato and Aristotle were apparently the first to devote to it sustained attention. But we shall find that evolution and change within the history of criticism have been by following, sometimes without a conscious decision, the methods of reflection inaugurated in Aristotelian metaphysics in which philosophy is established as the knowledge of things through their ultimate causes.

Morality has always played a significant role in the literary studies. It is in fact a legacy from the eminent Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle in the approaches to literature. Relying on the possible destructive impact of the poetic (literary) content on its audience (readers), Plato came to the conclusion that the poets (or those who deal with fictional issues) should be banished from an ideal society. In other words, according to Plato, reading fiction, or engaging with the fictional characters, events and situations, influences readers’ behaviour negatively. Beginning from his student Aristotle, his interpretation has continuously been evaluated and (re)interpreted by both his proponents and opponents. On the one hand, some critics have tried to prove the point that the morality represented in literature is unique to the fictional or imaginary world and should not be taken as similar with the kind of morality human being are living with. On the other hand, some others have argued that literature can be a source of both positive and negative moral values or it can contribute (either positively or negatively) to the readers’ moral values. The present essay examines some recent critical perspectives which, following Aristotle, favour the positive impact of literature on human (moral) behaviour.

We all drink water on a daily basis unconsciously. If someone asks us what water is, we cannot often give an accurate answer. Likewise, we read literature on a daily basis and numerous universities offer literature courses to students. In addition, these universities require students to do thesis on literary works but what is the identity of literature? What is the best or genuine literary work? There are burning questions to ask with respect to literature? The answers to some of questions are indefinite and infinite. The present study is a reflection on the identity of the Literature, the main purpose of which to shed light on four questions: 1) Can literature be defined? 2) What is literary value? 3) What is the canon? 4) How does the canon affect us, as readers? To achieve the aim of the study, a library method of research was utilized. Having selected the area of the study, the present researcher made notes of the words and phrases of the topic under study. Afterwards, the researcher did readings on different sources available on the topic and notes were made on research cards. Next, the collection of data was followed by critical discussion and finally a summary of the discussion was purveyed.

This paper is inspired by the manuscript of Philip Kitcher’s forthcoming book Deaths in Venice: The Cases of Gustav von Aschenbach, in which he offers a brilliant, philosophically inspired reading of Thomas Mann’s novel, as well as his views on the relationship between literature and philosophy. One of Kitcher’s claims, which is my starting point, is that philosophy can be done not only by philosophers but also within some art forms, such as literature and music. Within the literary text, Kitcher claims, philosophy lies in the showing and the text can influence the way readers think and perceive the world. Due to this claim, I see Kitcher as pertaining to the group of literary cognitivists. He offers some powerful arguments in support of the cognitive value of literature, although his approach is substantially different from the arguments usually put forward in defence of literary cognitivism. In this paper, my aim is twofold: firstly, I want to analyse the relationship between philosophy and literature with the aim of showing that despite some overlap between the two disciplines, we have to keep them separate. Secondly, I want to explore what ramifications this has for literary cognitivism.

The relationship between literature and philosophy is almost as old as the two academic disciplines themselves. Indeed, for a very long time, philosophy has been interested in literature and vice versa. Some philosophers like Kant, Hegel, or Schopenhauer among many others-have had recourse to epic, lyrical or dramatic poets because they realized, literary works can help them in their philosophical efforts to convey the message of truth, well-being, wisdom in society. The obstacle which prevented them from having recourse to it seemed to be the thread of the metaphysical tradition. But not everything can happen through metaphysics alone to be understood, useful in society. Thus, because of their stakes and their style, philosophies of existence rub shoulders even more closely with literary works. This applies to Heidegger, to Marcel, an admirer of Rilke, to Camus, a novelist before becoming an essayist, to Merleau-Ponty whose appeals to Valéry, Claudel or Proust are never accidental, to Sartre for whom the works of Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Genet, and Flaubert counted as much as those of the philosophers. This article takes an analytical look at the relationship that may exist between literature and philosophy through language.